Roope Uusitalo has been a professor in Economics of Education at the University of Jyväskylä since 2015. Previously he was a Research Director at Helsinki Center of Economic Research (HECER) and professor at University of Helsinki.

He received his PhD from University of Helsinki in 1999 and has since then been employed as a research director at the Government Institute for Economic Research, as a research coordinator at Labor Institute for Economic Research, as a professor at Helsinki School of Economics, and as a researcher at University of Helsinki and Institute for Labor Market Policy Evaluation at Uppsala. His current research interests include labor market effects of government programs, economic effects of immigration and economics of education.

Uusitalo is a chairman of Finnish Economic Policy Council and affiliated researcher at Institute of Labor market policy evaluation, Uppsala.

He joined IZA as a Research Fellow in January 2009.